My Experience in Teaching English
Literature
With Special Reference
to Teaching poetry
by
Dr Hana Al-Bayyati
Teaching literature is not an easy task,
especially when it is taught in a foreign language. The day I started teaching
this important discipline was the most critical day in my life. That was twenty two years ago. I was given three literary subjects: (1) An
Introduction to English Literature (1st year), and (2) English
poetry from the 16th –19th century (2nd year),
(3) Literary Translation (4th year).
The first problem I encountered was writing the syllabus. How can I divide that huge literary material
into a limited time (two terms). The
second problem was the teaching
methods I had to follow in order to reach different levels of students' minds.
I first thought of imitating the method of my British supervisor, by giving the
headlines of the topic with a list of relevant sources to be given to the
students to fetch from the library and write a research paper on each
topic. Then I asked some students about
the method most teachers of our department followed. They all answered:
"Dictating, or summarizing". When I compared the British method to the
Iraqi one, I found a big gap between the
two. I decided to follow both in order to
see which one the students preferred. I started with the British method. Unfortunately, I failed to reach the weakest
students who complained about the limitation of time and the shortage of the
sources in the library. I tried
dictating, and summarizing. The students
were very happy, but I was not. I found dictating the university students the
worst method. Then I tried using a text book for each discipline. I found that
much better than dictating, yet I was still not satisfied with it, because I
like my students to widen their knowledge and participate in the class. So I
asked them to write papers on relevant topics to encourage them using the
library and the internet. That was much better
than the other methods because it encouraged students to summarize the literary
materials and to know how to discuss them in the class. I used to ask my students to write down some
anonymous notes on my lectures referring to the difficulties that hindered
their comprehension. I benefited a lot
from those notes. When I read the students' common complaints about the high
speed of my English, I slowed down my speed to allow the students to write
their notes after me. When they
complained about the amount of the material I always leave in the bookshop, I
decided to divide the papers into two groups: the first to be prepared for the
exam; the second, for further readings.
When they wrote about the
difficulty in understanding the sound devices in poetry, like rhyme, rhythm and
scansion of metrical patterns, I read the verses in two different readings: the
normal one and the poetic one to let
them know the difference between the two.
The first reading did not help them to understand English prosody; the second
did. Then I asked them to imitate me. I also
used the board to syllabi the verses, and I used my fingers to beat the table
to create the sounds of stressed and unstressed syllables. I gave each syllable
a certain name, the unstressed (Da) and the stressed (Dum). Then I asked them
to guess what metrical patterns are Da Dum, or Dum Da. They answered the first iambic, the
second trochaic. I read a selected verse using the sound symbols and asked a
clever student to read a new verse using the same symbols. Following that
method, I almost solved the problem of scansion. In addition, students found it quiet enjoyable.
When I traveled to Jordan
In 2005 I came back to teach in English
Department at Basrah
University
I
held three poetry competitions so far.
The poems of the first two
competitions (2011-2012) have been collected in an anthology, called The Tree
of Poetry". This year we held a third poetry competition in which we
invite the school students of Basrah to compete with the students of the department. The total of the poems in this competition is 25. I look forward to publish another anthology
very shortly.
Another
problem I have not mentioned yet is the students literary analysis of poetry.
When I found my students weak at critical comments, I encouraged them to be
confident enough to present their points of view no matter how weak and silly
they might be. The purpose of this method is to increase their ability in
literary criticism. I also taught them how to reconcile between their teacher's
critical notes and the notes they usually find in the printed sources or in the
internet papers. These are not all the
problems I encountered while teaching English Literature because the
list is endless.
Before I end my paper I would like to draw
the department attention to the curricula of literature. We should seriously start
updating the traditional curricula into more modern ones and emerge technology
in teaching English literature. To
achieve this, the department should build a language laboratory with the latest
technology.
